'tis the season (to love you)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After two decades or so of existing on planet Earth, Eddy's finally man enough to come to a less-than-stellar conclusion about his own person: he just might be a fucking moron.

The last few days spent in Lamerra trying to get accustomed to the cold have done little to prepare him for the brunt of the snowstorm screaming its fury over the town. He's shivering from head to toe, spine a quivering bowstring as he trudges through the ivory blanket that adorns the grounds.

He feels cold and wet and miserable. Funnily enough, that applies both within himself and without. The storm's formed deep in the cavernous confines of his chest, inextricable, and he cannot find his way through.

Obviously, he hasn't been thinking straight, like at all. Which, upon closer inspection, he supposes is the whole point. No one in their right mind would march out into a snowstorm and willingly seek shelter in a rickety old tool shed out of sheer spite. And maybe no small amount of rage, but that's another matter entirely.

God, he fucked up real bad.

"Damn idiot fool," he tells himself aloud, for good measure. Before he can stop himself, he looks back over his shoulder, through the white haze at the dimly lit windows of the mansion. From this distance, he can't be sure of what he's seeing, but he thinks he can see someone standing by behind one, a familiar figure watching over him across the gloom.

Or maybe not; no, don't think that. (He's been wrong about things before.)

As always, time and time again, everything circles back to him. Brett Yang. Of course. No doubt about that.

Once more, because this should probably just play on a loop in his brain for the rest of his life: Eddy Chen is a moron. He should never have allowed himself to fall into temptation, should never have allowed even the slightest hint of wishful thinking to taint his thoughts. He should never have caved. When his best friend had come waltzing in that day at the dorm with a fool plan on his lips and a glimmer in his eye, Eddy should never have said yes.

Now, look at him: he's ruined for good. Not even just himself, but the wonderful thing that he and Brett share. A decade of a friendship that he has built his future, the very picture of the rest of his life on, and for what? A fucking menagerie of heartaches, that's what.

And the best and worst thing about it is that—well. He's still in love. Still truly, madly, deeply in love, and for once, he thinks a fickle heart would've been better than this gut-wrenching permanence.

A desperate kind of surety deep down within him protests over the entire verbal fistfight he and Brett just had. The disbelief in his gut rages at the very idea that Brett could've seriously meant the things he'd said. It's a constant of the universe that Eddy Chen knows Brett Yang, and his best friend might be an occasional asshole, but he isn't like that: hurtful for the sake of hurting, barbs sharp at the tip of his tongue. He's not like that at all.

(There had been something there, lurking in the depths of Brett's eyes, a little something twisted around his words, ivy-runged. Something else. Something different. Something hidden that Eddy's never seen before, that Eddy can't quite pick out.)

And yet.

(One's hurts can overcome one's reason all too easily.)

Whatever. He doesn't know what's real anymore. Truth be told, he doesn't know what on earth to do next either.

All he knows is that he has to get away.

Lost in his own thoughts, it doesn't feel like too long has passed before he manages to reach the toolshed. Eddy pushes the door open, constructs a fort made out of bedding—a comfort, if you will, and god, he's trying to cope with shitty puns now; what the fuck—with the blankets and pillows he'd hauled over from the mansion, and finally, finally manages to break apart.